


Day 14: Collaring

by Aichi



Series: Kinktober 2020 [14]
Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Blood, Collars, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Restraints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27189319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aichi/pseuds/Aichi
Summary: Continued directly from day thirteen. Luard's husband comes to his rescue, because of course he does.
Relationships: Luard/Stealth Dragon Shiranui
Series: Kinktober 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951588
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	Day 14: Collaring

**Author's Note:**

> When I say "continued from day 13" I really mean there is absolutely even less effort than normal put into making this stand on its own in any way. Read the other one first.
> 
> Rated for a small amount of bad language and Implications of BDSM.

The dragon turns just in time, and the first kunai slices through her shoulder instead of her throat.

The second misses altogether; she dives behind Luard’s cage, instantly flattening herself against the ground, growling out a bitter string of curses. All at once, the entire cave erupts into chaos, the other dozen or so dragons scattering or desperately scrambling for their weapons. A cacophony of sound echoes around the cave walls, confused shouts and the ringing of steel on steel drowning each other out.

Luard groans, head swimming, willing his eyes to focus.

Shadows dart between the stalagmites, and one by one, the dragons begin to fall. One grasps at his stomach as blood sprays in a wide arc across the floor, and another sinks to his knees with a guttural groan, one arm hanging limp and useless at his side. Caught entirely unawares, each and every one of them are no match for their unseen assailants.

“Shit,” the female dragon hisses, “no, no— this can’t be— not yet—”

The door to Luard’s cage clicks open, and before he can collect himself enough to utter an _I told you so_ , he’s being dragged backwards and hauled roughly to his feet. Only the dragon’s grip on his collar keeps him upright, the floor swaying drunkenly under him, the world nauseatingly blurry as he grapples with the impossible challenge of seeing and standing at the same time.

“Shiranui clan!” the dragon shouts, voice rising high over the screams and chaos. “If you value the elf’s life, lay down your weapons!”

A kunai pricks meaningfully at Luard’s throat, just below the weight of the collar. The tip is slick with blood, and he realizes dully that it’s the same one she just pulled from her own shoulder. He gurgles, swallowing the sickly bitterness in his throat, and staggers weakly against her chest. The collar is still very much doing its work; his body is little more than dead weight, the mana in his veins binding him with all the strength of iron chains, and even the idea of imminent rescue isn’t enough to break the dam and get it flowing again.

“That’s enough,” a familiar voice says, and the violence stills as Shiranui steps forward, both sides parting to make way.

He stands a good head or so taller than Luard’s captor, but the weight of the world is evident in his hunched shoulders and tired eyes. The low light of a torch shimmers off the metal of his artificial limbs, leg creaking under his weight as he approaches, stopping a safe, nonthreatening distance away. Luard’s breath is almost as still as the cave itself as the two dragons stare each other down, the silence broken only by a pebble sent skittering across the floor as his still-bound feet struggle to stay under him. His kidnapper’s claws curl tight around the collar, tips hooked between the metal and his skin, and a thought floats through his mind like a leaf lost on the wind — there’s probably more strength in those claws right now that in his entire body.

“Shiranui.” The woman’s greeting is curt, sharpened and deadly as her blade. Her body stiffens defensively, and she pulls Luard close against her chest. He’s in no state to resist.

“I’m afraid I don’t know your name,” Shiranui says, his tone careful and deliberate, benevolent and yet unyielding, “but I’m going to have to ask that you not harm my husband if you want us to come to any reasonable agreement.” His eyes narrow, and although his katana remains sheathed, his claws rest meaningfully on the hilt. “Am I to assume you want something from me?”

The kunai scrapes Luard’s skin, drawing a thin, stinging red line in its wake. “Your clan.”

“Pardon?” Shiranui’s claws tighten around the katana’s hilt, and the remaining handful of undispatched kidnappers shift uneasily, a couple reaching for their own weapons. Shiranui’s subordinates ready themselves in turn, and Luard sways queasily, certain both sides are moments away from descending back into violence, until the ring of the woman’s voice stills them again.

“Your clan,” she repeats, sharply. “Heard you have a leadership position up for grabs. I want it.”

“I have no authority to offer you such a thing.”

“You do,” she insists, the heat of her breath hissing against Luard’s neck as she bares her teeth. “They’ll do anything you say, regardless of what your official position is. And _you_ —” She grazes Luard’s skin again pointedly. “—will do anything _I_ say, unless you want me to spill your pretty boytoy’s blood all over this cave.”

“I assure you, if you do any such thing, you’ll get no mercy from me.”

“It’ll be too late for him, though, won’t it?” She grabs Luard’s chin, his head hanging limply in her grip as she pulls it upright, shows Shiranui both his dazed, unfocused eyes and the claws pinching brutally and painfully into his cheeks. “And don’t even try using your Evil Eye. We’re wise to all your tricks.” Jerking Luard’s head further back, she nods down at his half-shifted body, his tail twitching uselessly against her leg. “His too, as you can see.”

Shiranui blinks, slow and tired, and even through the haze clouding Luard’s bleary vision, there’s a guarded uncertainty visible in the creases of his scaly skin, one that he doesn’t need to vocalize for Luard to understand. He’s lost so much already, so many of his clan committed to the dirt, an unspeakable number put there by Luard himself, and they’re a burden on his shoulders than can never truly lighten — but it’s the labour of carrying their memory that has made Shiranui so strong now. He doesn’t intend to lose anyone else.

“Please,” he says. “Don’t do anything rash.”

It’s Luard’s place, too, to carry the burden that he helped to create. There’s nowhere else for him in the world now than at Shiranui’s side, and though even a hundred lifetimes of support can’t replace the ones he took, that’s not going to stop him from trying. _You’re still alive, so you can do it over again, no matter how many times it takes_.

“Give me what I want, and I won’t have to.”

At that, Shiranui takes a step forward, and the woman’s grip and muscles tighten, like a coiled snake ready to lunge. Even Luard’s attention is so focused on him that the subtle motion made by one of his clanmates almost goes unnoticed.

A signal.

“Ungai,” Shiranui says. “Now.”

The woman doesn’t have time to react as metal whistles through the air. Howling, she reels backwards, kunai clattering to the floor as she tears the shuriken from her scales and grasps her suddenly bloody hand. Without support, Luard’s body crumples, a dry leaf crushed underfoot, the ground lurching violently and racing up to meet him.

A broad arm around his chest knocks the breath out of him, but it’s the only thing that stops him from coming, very literally, face-to-face with the unyielding stone of the cave floor. Heart hammering, he huffs and gasps for breath as his savior rolls him onto his back, another arm sliding under his knees and scooping him up securely against a familiar chest.

“You bastard—!” the woman screams, but whatever else he has to say is drowned out by the renewed ringing of blades as Shiranui’s men launch back into action.

This time, it doesn’t last long. Luard turns his head just enough to get a glimpse of the female dragon on the ground, the point of Ungai’s katana brushing her neck, but his collar is still so _heavy_ that trying to focus just makes his head hurt. It’s so much easier to just slip back into the perpetual inbetween of the conscious and the unconscious, forehead resting against warm scales as the brief surge of adrenaline is subdued by the device around his neck.

"I've got you," Shiranui murmurs, his voice reverberating in Luard's bones, and _that_ alone is more comforting and subduing than any magical device could ever be.

They pass by several other similarly-dispatched dragons as Shiranui carries him silently from the cave. The sunlight outside is mercilessly bright, and Luard squirms in his bonds in a useless attempt to raise a hand to cover his eyes. Even his wings are still pinned, not only by the ropes but by Shiranui’s arms too, and he lets out a soft groan as he burrows his aching head into the dragon’s chest.

“Easy,” Shiranui says gently, holding him close. “You’re safe.”

“Never doubted it,” Luard murmurs back. It’s the truth; even if he didn’t have faith in Shiranui’s conviction and abilities, he’s way too out of it to organize his thoughts enough to start worrying.

“Well, I did.”

Before Luard can start trying to dissect _that_ , Shiranui sets him down. Something springy and soft squishes under his tail — moss, he realizes; the cave lets out at the edge of a patch of forest, and the tree Shiranui leans him against is a welcome obstacle for the sun as his eyes slowly start to adjust.

It’s warm, and Shiranui is kneeling next to him, a claw supporting his shoulder, and he almost feels like he could go to sleep right there, but a viscous hissing and scuffling pulls his gaze back to the cave mouth. It takes the combined strength of Ungai and two other dragons to haul Luard’s former captor into the light, and the rope wound around her muzzle as a makeshift gag does little to stop her growling in Shiranui’s direction as they drag her by.

“You didn’t kill her,” Luard says, emptily. He’s not sure what he feels, and trying to figure it out is too exhausting.

Shiranui shakes his head. “And I won’t. I intend to offer her sympathy.”

“I didn’t exactly get the feeling that she wants to be friends. She made fun of your arm and leg.”

"I believe—" A gentle claw brushes loose locks of hair from Luard’s face. “—that she’s just looking for a home. Someplace she can feel secure. But she doesn't know how to find it without fighting.” Shiranui leans forward, presses the tip of his snout to Luard’s forehead for a second, the kiss as familiar as the sudden, uncomfortable pity that twinges in his chest. “I’m not the only one who wants to protect my family.”

The words hang in the air, stewing uneasily in Luard's brain as several more dragons are led from the cave, bandages already wrapped around the worst of their wounds. With their leader subdued, none of them seem interested in putting up a fight, and Shiranui's men lead them after Ungai and the others without any complaints.

_You’re still alive, so you can do it over again._

“Someone mention ‘ _family_ ’?” another familiar voice interjects, before Luard can ask what exactly is going to become of them. “Because I heard mine has gotten itself into trouble. Again.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Luard grumbles, as Babd kneels down next to him, shrugging a satchel overflowing with books from her shoulder.

“Please,” she laughs, chiding but not unkind. “It’s hardly the first time I’ve seen you in a collar.”

“H-hey—!” Luard turns away in a useless attempt to hide the hot blush that instantly takes over his face, but his sister is already leaning in, prodding at the band of metal around his neck with a curious finger.

“Interesting design,” she muses, ignoring Luard’s objections. “Very unusual. Not like any mana-disruption device I’ve ever seen.” She leans over to peer at Luard’s wings, still trapped uncomfortably between his bound hands, which apparently nobody has seen fit to untie for him yet. “You can’t shift back?”

“Or forward,” he adds. “Are either of you going to get these ropes off me any time soon?”

“Doesn’t look like there’s any easy way to remove it,” she continues, and Luard is pretty sure he might as well be talking to a wall. A few sparks dance in the air as she makes a small gesture with her hand, but they quickly sputter and die, and she shakes her head. “Didn’t think so.”

“I think ropes look very fetching on you,” Shiranui puts in, as Babd unclips the latch on her satchel and begins rummaging.

“ _You would_.”

“I would, yes.”

“I’m admittedly not sure if I can do this,” Babd says, the frown creasing her lips entirely at odds with the light of curiosity in her eyes. She flips through a huge, ominous-looking leatherbound tome, a finger tracing lines of symbols down the pages as she scans, flips, scans again, brow furrowing harder with each page. “I’ll try a couple more things, but we may have to ask that woman. This could take some time.” A smile slides onto her face for a moment. “Well, at least you’re used to being collared.”

Luard groans halfheartedly, wishing the flush spreading over his skin would act as tired as the rest of him feels. “Okay, now you guys are just ganging up on me.”

“A little,” she admits, but Shiranui at least takes pity on him, a claw slipping between his wrists and expertly severing the ropes binding them.

Breathing a slow sigh of relief, he rubs gently at the raw, reddened patches of skin, and Shiranui helps him lean forward enough to stretch his stiff wings and pick apart the knots around his ankles before resting him back against the tree. Babd, meanwhile, goes back to her book, and Luard decides it’s hardly worth expending his last vestiges of energy to deliver her the litany of scathing retorts he definitely has at the ready.

The need for sleep pricks at the edges of his awareness, subtle but insistent. Despite being essentially manhandled the entire time, both the ordeal and the collar have left him drained, sluggish, body straining with the effort of maintaining his charged, half-dragon shape for so long; even now, there’s no reprieve, the pressure of pent-up energy that he can’t feel or access still tingling under his skin, the suddenly strange, unsettling weight of the word _family_ sitting at the back of his mind. Fingers curling gently around one of Shiranui’s massive claws, he shifts his weight from the tree to the dragon’s shoulder, practically falling back into his husband’s waiting arms.

_She doesn't know how to find it without fighting_.

Shiranui scoops him up again, whisking him away from half-formed images of jet-black scales stained by vengeance, and Luard notices the slight curve of a smile on the dragon’s lips in spite of everything.

“Would you be upset,” he says, very quietly, turning away to avoid Babd’s prying ears, “if I said the collar looks good on you too?”

**Author's Note:**

> It's not actually in the work at all but BABD/UNGAI SHIPPERS RISE UP. All two of you. (Seriously, why do you think she's in Nuba lands. It runs in the family to marry ninja dragons.)
> 
> This one is a bit boring for everyone I think but next time I will actually do something sexy and/or relevant to the prompt, I promise lol. It probably could have gone somewhere interesting if I had more time to spend on it to develop these themes more than Not At All but, alas, I am literally eleven days behind here aaaAAAA
> 
> Twitter: @cosmowreath


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